Author: Karl Cramer

Remember a year ago there we’re all these crazy news stories that producers were working on a Spider-Man Broadway musical? Julie Taymor directing. Music by Bono and the Edge from U2. A plot that revolves around a Spider Goddess. Yeah, that one.

Well, it looks like it’s going forward. Playbill reported that a reading of the story was scheduled to take place on July 12-13. And now an open casting call has been  announced for July 28 at New York City’s Knitting Factory. They’re auditioning three roles:

• Peter Parker: male, age 16-20’s, great rock voice, nerdy with understated sex appeal and a good sense of humor.
• Mary Jane: female, age 16-20’s, girl next door, strong pop/rock singing voice.
• Spider Goddess: female, age 25-35, rock vocals. Sinead O’Connor-type with a Middle Eastern /Bulgarian/Greek/ twist. Foreign, world music types are great, foreign accents are great. All ethnicities will be considered.

Think you have what it takes? Bring headshot, resume, and sheet music of 16 bars of a pop/rock song that shows your range. For more info e-mail: spidermancasting [at] gmail [dot] com

On the Cheap Ass Gamer E3 podcast, Robert “Shipwreck” Goode found out some great news from a PR rep for DC Universe Online, the highly anticipated comic book based MMO role-playing game. The game will be demonstrated at San Diego Comic-Con and the public can play it!

He also got some hands-on time with DCUO and reported it departs from the usual point-and-click play of MMOs like World of Warcraft. Playing more like a traditional PlayStation 3 game, he described it as an "action MMO."

Over at Massively.com, a gaming website devoted to all things MMO, they talked with the developer dynamic duo of SOE-Austin VP of development John Blakely and DCOU Creative Director Chris Cao.

Some of the highlights from that article include: 

• The storyline will explain why all these new heroes (you guys) start popping up.
• One PvP battleground is the "Tomb of Isis," which forces everyone to eventually team-up when a very angry Black Adam finds opponents fighting around his wife’s grave.
• The SDCC demo will be the “Brainiac Attacks!” event.
• Another event scenario will be “Thanagarians Invade.” Expect regularly released events, much like Warcaft holidays.
• They still haven’t finalized the business model (the cited reason why Microsoft canceled Marvel Universe Online). Play for free after buying the retail copy? A monthly fee? In-game ads plastered all over Metropolis? It’s anyone’s guess at this point. 

Even Sam Raimi would be hard-pressed to choreograph a great fight between Spider-Man and the Vulture. I mean, c’mon. Adriane Toomes is an old man who dresses like a carrion-eating bird. He’s not one of Spidey’s A-list bad guys.

After watching Activision’s latest footage for the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows videogame, I believe a man can fly… and fight! The battle highlighted developer Shaba Games promise to bring Spider-Man’s mid-air battles to life.

Also note Peter Parker giving in to his dark side and letting the black costume take control. The balance between the classic and black costumes is supposed to be a major point of the game.

Video of the gameplay is posted after the jump.

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Consider it the worst kept secret since Spider-Man’s secret identity. (Well, before One More Day.) Through stock reports and other PR events, Activision had pretty much said that a sequel to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was on the way.

As we reported earlier today, they revealed the official name at Activision’s E3 press conference: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Fusion. The subtitle comes from the heroes now combining their abilities for “an astonishing number of powers.” The demonstration teased Iron Man’s laser beams and the Invisible Woman’s forcefield building up to something but they stopped before showing the result. In the original MUA, when two characters attacked the same enemy, a bonus would be added for performing the combo. A “+2 to damage” sort of thing. The new system is more along the lines of the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer videogame adaptation, where the Human Torch filled Invisible Woman’s force bubble with fire so she could hurl it as a bomb.

As for as the storyline, Activision didn’t confirm the rumors that it revolved around the Civil War story from the comics (despite Brian Bendis’ saying as much in our recent interview with him). If anything, the footage shown made it seem like Latveria was attacking the world.

The series has been an odd mixture of the Ultimate and classic Marvel universes, but Wolverine was shown now wearing his yellow uniform from Astonishing X-Men, as seen in the video posted after the jump. (more…)